Choose Your Own Contextual Advertisers: Will Google Ever Let You?

"According to a July 19 report from Nielsen//NetRatings, the demand for search-engine advertising (such as Google Adwords or Overture) is growing far more quickly than the supply of available advertising spots. This means that before long, popular keywords will become prohibitively costly -- at which point those search-engine ads would cease to make economic sense even for the largest online advertisers."

Do you think this is true?

Is this really happening?

Here are my personal thoughts on the above issues. These are critical, highly dynamic and hot topics that will determine the ability and effectiveness with which independent publishers will be able to consolidate the weight, influence and long-term sustainability of their efforts.

"Lurking between the lines of this report, I think, is a hidden opportunity for online publishers, including news sites.

As search-result pages from Google and Yahoo get increasingly crowded by competing ads, programs that syndicate ads out to third-party sites may become even more attractive to online advertisers. But those services need to improve.

I recently started running Google AdSense ads on my own weblog, Contentious, and the results have been disappointing so far -- mainly, I think, because Google's method of categorizing my blog's content is so ham-handed that the service winds up displaying ads that offer little appeal to my readers. I know my readers better than Google does. Why can't I suggest a list of relevant keywords and phrases to guide the type of ads that will be displayed on my blog? Right now, all the ads on my site are for blogging tools -- but my readers are far more interested in writing/editing services and e-learning. The clickthrough rate would be much higher if I could somehow communicate this insight to Google."

Amy, you are definitely right on the mark with many of these comments. Let me share some of my own learning experiences on how to resolve the lack of AdSense relevance inside your blog or news articles while taking your good points one at a time.

You say:

a) "This means that before long, popular keywords will become prohibitively costly -- at which point those search-engine ads would cease to make economic sense even for the largest online advertisers."

Robin comment: Popular keywords are of little use anyhow. We have all been very ignorant and lazy at understanding that the highest advantage for both the seller and the buyer to find each other is to be a lot more specific than using a generic keyword. The one-keyword business is representative of the model of the past: mass consumption. In the era of personalization and custom solutions keyphrases and niche keyword sets are the new kings. Focus is the name of the game.

b) "As search-result pages from Google and Yahoo get increasingly crowded by competing ads, programs that syndicate ads out to third-party sites may become even more attractive to online advertisers."

Robin comment: Right on the mark. This is really a golden market that is NOT yet being taken advantage of by smart and capable entrepreneurs. The opportunities are tremendous but hardly none has been able to capitalize on it with a great service.

c) "...But those services need to improve."

Robin comment: I couldn't agree more. Blogads has lost the opportunity long ago by not leveraging his early entry into this market. Overture, Kanoodle, Pheedo, RSSAds, MarketBanker, and the many other contextual ad brokering agencies that have emerged out there, are either stuck in a traditional advertising paradigm, sleep on their dreams, or have yet not understood at all the rules governing effective media consumption in the age of personalization. They are bound to be easily superseded by anyone having the capability to understand that the organization and ease of access to ad-space-buying across hundreds of sites has to be designed with great content organization, and powerful search and comparison abilities to be of any use to advertisers. Unfortunately, the existing competitors show a large variety of strengths and weaknesses that still need a large dose of refinements. On the other hand I think that Google AdSense is the only that provides a truly "killer" service, the first that in my view does provide the ideal type of non-intrusive and relevant contextaul advertising I have long desired. Not only: AdSense can be very profitable if you do your homework right.

d) "I recently started running Google AdSense ads on my own weblog, Contentious, and the results have been disappointing so far -- mainly, I think, because Google's method of categorizing my blog's content is so ham-handed that the service winds up displaying ads that offer little appeal to my readers."

Robin comment: It doesn't have to be this way. Pay attention to these simple rules and you will reap great benefits from AdSense tremedous potential.1) Make sure your Page Title and the H1 on your individual article pages are consistent/synergistic and provide effective and unambiguous clues to Google about what is the exact focus of your content on that page. (Take for example the Poynter Online article page that spun off this article of mine. I know that Poynter Online is not running Google AdSense but it is anyhow a perfectly good example page. Look at these details: The Page Title and the H1 on that page are not in agreement. The Page Title says "Poynter Online E-Media Tidbits" (wasted) and the supposed H1 says "Search Engine Ad Space Is Running Out". Problem is that this title is not the main title on the page, maybe is not even tagged as an H1 and it is preceded by at least two other apparently more important titles: a) Tuesday July 20 2004 and b) E-Media Tidbits.

Bottom Rules:

1) Unless you have clear, unambiguous and strong synergy/convergence between the Page Title and the H1, Google AdSense will not produce highly relevant ads.

2) Reduce the amount of other ads, and outgoing links you pile on your side columns. The less you have the more specific Google will be.

3) Make sure the URL of your page corroborates the two points above.)

e) "Why can't I suggest a list of relevant keywords and phrases to guide the type of ads that will be displayed on my blog? Right now, all the ads on my site are for blogging tools -- but my readers are far more interested in writing/editing services and e-learning. The clickthrough rate would be much higher if I could somehow communicate this insight to Google."

Robin comment:You can. You only need to be a Google Premium partner to do this. Google provides to their high volume AdSense customers the option of "hinting" the system with specific set of keywords that will drive specific ads to their pages. This feature, though documented by some people who have taken the risk of illegally utilizing it, is certainly in the direction of what you are asking for. As you, I strongly feel that we are directed toward a marketplace where individual news sources, bloggers and free journalists will be able to directly endorse specific sets of products and services that they strongly like. This would translate in my own view in the ability for the blogger/independent publisher to manually select from a pool of possible advertisers the ones that may best match the content published. I sincerely think that this approach would guarantee great benefits to both advertisers and publishers, while favouring a renaissance of ethical, honest, uncontrived and fact-based marketing promotion.